Maximum "Max" Ride
Maximum Ride (Max) is fourteen years old; the oldest of the avian-human hybrids and the leader of The Flock. Appearance She is 5'8 and has a wingspan that starts at 13 feet but eventually become 15 feet across. Her wings are an off white with brown stripes and tan specks. She has brown eyes, however her hair color varies from source to source. In the books, she is said to have brown hair (with sun streaks added later), in the manga her hair is blond, and on the book covers, the color alternates. Max acts as a motherly figure to the Flock, nurturing them and looking out for them. She is also known as being a terrible cook (although in book 5 she cooks with her mom and the food is good). She loves chocolate chip cookies, which are her favorite food, causing her to go "crazy with desire" every time she sees them. Max and the rest of the Flock are noted to be claustrophobic, a fear that came from being shut up in dog crates while at The School. Max also has a fear of snakes. Personality Max is tough, sarcastic and hates "girliness". In MAX, Max turns down many opportunities in a meeting (in which she wears clothes that "aren't blood splattered, which is the best you can get out of me") to become famous such as becoming models, actors, etc. She says she is "worried with herself" when she describes Nudge's hair in a girly way. Max often is annoyed by herself for things like worrying about her appearance, etc. She once recalls how "last year, I would chop off my hair with a knife when it got in my eyes." She is independent and strong, but has never known a true mother or father figure, aside from Jeb (who she later had mixed feelings about) and Dr. Martinez, who is her biological mother. (Jeb is also her biological father, but she never refers to him in that way.) She wants to be loved, though she often denies it. Throughout the books, she falls in love with Fang. In Fang, she and Fang are often leaving the flock to kiss and share romantic moments. Fighting Style Max learned how to fight from Jeb Batchelder. She fights in a mixed martial arts style, once calling it Max Kwon Do. It helps that she (as well as the rest of the Flock) is really strong, so she can easily defeat most (non-mutant) grown men. She meets her match in a fight against a boy created by the Director, the woman she once thought was her evil mother, but eventually defeats him too, with advice from Jeb. She tends to use roundhouse kicks (turning kicks) quite often, which can be seen as her signature fighting move, or a lack of martial arts variety on the part of the author. Romance Several times throughout the series, Max shows signs of attraction towards Fang, though she denies it. In "The Angel Experiment" Max kisses Fang on a beach near New York City after Fang has been injured in a fight with Ari. She does this very suddenly and cannot come up with an explanation for her actions, saying it happened "just like that". In "School's Out - Forever" Max shows intense jealousy when Fang kisses a red-haired girl named Lissa (the Red-Haired Wonder). Later, in "Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports" Fang kisses Max in a cave again. Max says her mind "shorts out" while Fang is kissing her, but she then tells Fang she's "not sure" and flies off, confused. Also in the same book, Max is given Valium to prepare her for surgery, and while under its influence she tells Fang that she "loves him so much". Fang later teases her about this, causing her to get immensely angry. Fang kisses Max another time in "The Final Warning," and this time Max says she "loves it... loves him." When she finally clears her head, however, she flies away again. However later in the book Max shows more jealousy when Fang gets close to a young scientist, Dr. Brigid Dwyer (Dr Amazing, Stupendous etc). In MAX (book 5), Max admits to loving Fang, and knows that he is her "soulmate." Angel tells Max things like "Fang loves you," "Maybe you should give him more than a break...Fang could totally be your boyfriend. You guys could get married." Max kisses him four times ("Making out," as she calls it, or getting "hot and heavy."), and goes on an "official" date with him, with none of the other kids. She says she loves kissing him (she says she wishes she could spend all of her time doing it), and that she "highly recommends it." In "Fang," another boy is introduced into the flock, Dylan. She finds herself staring at him, her heart beat quickening when he comes in, ect. However, she completely denies any affections for him and continues to love Fang. In the end of the same book, Fang leaves her, saying that it's not good for the flock for them to be together, leaving Max heartbroken and upset. Abilities Like the rest of the Flock, Max has unique abilities other than flying. She has a Voice in her head that tries to guide her, though Max often does not listen to it. At one point Max believes the Voice to be that of Jeb Batchelder, a whitecoat at the School, but he denies this, telling her "I can do the Voice. I'm not the Voice." (It should be noted that both Angel and Ari have mentioned a Voice as well.) Max also has the ability to fly extremely fast, her top velocity at roughly 240-250mph (verified by the Director through a microchip in her arm). In addition, she is able to temporary shut down her organs, thus effectively playing dead, although this may have been possible only because she was detained in an isolation tank at the time. Once she escapes from the isolation tank, she also believes that she can smell the flock but these powers aren't mentioned in other books. In book 5 "MAX", as hinted by Angel many times throughout the book, she develops gills when she is about to die in the water after she has her oxygen tank ripped off by a giant squid. In "The Angel Experiment", Max discovers she has what appears to be a tracer microchip embedded in her arm when Dr. Martinez, a woman who helps Max and is later revealed to be her mother, gives Max an x-ray for the purpose of discovering the extent of her injury, having been shot in the arm. Max believes the chip gives off a signal that tells the scientists at the School where she is, though this is not proven. In "School's Out - Forever" Max, in a fit of anger, grabs a broken seashell and tries to cut the chip out of her arm, though she does not succeed. Later, in "Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports" Max goes back to Dr. Martinez and asks her to remove the chip. Although Dr. Martinez is successful in taking the chip out, Max temporarily loses the use of her left hand due to nerve damage done during the surgery. The use of her hand is later restored, thanks to the School. She also believe that the chip might have been the cause of the voice, but that notion was proved wrong when it started talking again after Max's surgery. Trivia *Max is the only member of the Flock who has found her parents (besides Iggy, who left his parents). She is stunned when she learns that Jeb Batchelder is her father in "Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports". It is also at this time that Max discovers that Dr. Martinez is her mother. Max trusts Dr. Martinez completely but is still wary of Jeb, usually not listening to him unless Dr. Martinez agrees with him. Max is also close with her half-sister, Dr. Martinez's daughter, Ella Martinez. *Max claims the name, "seven-five-nine-nine-three-nine-ex-dash-one junior", in an attempt to confuse Chinese scientists.